BioTIME is a remarkable collation of research effort which will be a major resource for keeping track of biodiversity change, and one which we hope will become a useful tool for scientists and researchers worldwide.

The database (available here) was created by a consortium of 271 authors across 35 countries who pulled together data on how species numbers, abundances and their identities have changed from the late 1800s to the present.

In total, the database consists of nearly 9 million records, sourced from more than 500 thousand places on Earth and includes over 44,000 different species.